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VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
TRẦN THỊ MAI HẠNH
USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS TO IMPROVE
ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ READING SKILL AT
THANH DO COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY
(Sử dụng tài tiệu thực nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng đọc hiểu cho sinh viên
chuyên ngữ trường Cao Đẳng Công Nghệ Thành Đô)
MA MINOR THESIS
Hanoi - 2010 Field: Methodology
Code: 601410
Course: 16 2
VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ MAI HẠNH


1.5. Scope of the study 3
1.6. Significance of the study 3
1.7. Design of the study 4
Chapter 2: Literature Review 5
2.1. Background of reading 5
2.2. Intensive reading and extensive reading 6
2.2.1. Intensive reading 6
2.2.2. Extensive reading 6
2.3. Authentic materials in EFL 8
2.3.1. Definitions of authentic materials 8 7
2.3.2. Types of authentic materials 9
2.3.3. Considerations for selecting authentic materials 9
2.3.4. Advantages of authentic materials 11
2.3.5. Disadvantages of authentic materials 12
2.4. The use of authentic materials in teaching reading 13
2.4.1. The stages of a reading lesson 14
2.4.2. Applying authentic materials in teaching reading 15
2.4.3. Authentic tasks 17
2.4.4. Task authenticity and input authenticity 18
2.5. Conclusive remarks 19
Chapter 3: Methodology 20
3.1. Research context 20
3.2. Research questions 20
3.3. Research approach 20
3.3.1. An overview of an action research 20
3.3.2. Rationales for the use of action research 21
3.3.3. Applying authentic materials in extensive reading program 22

5.4. Suggestions for the future research 36
References 37
Appendices I
Appendix 1. Pretest and posttest I 9
Appendix 2. Pre-questionnaire IX
Appendix 3. Post-questionnaire X
Appendix 4. Lesson plan XII
Appendix 5. Authentic material XIV
Appendix 6. Non-authentic material XVI
Appendix 7. Result of pretest and posttest XXII

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Sumary of characteristics of intensive and extensive reading
approaches……….7Table 2: An overview of an extensive
reading…………………………………………….22
Table 3: The level of students‟ interest in reading lessons and the needs and
expectations of the students in the
classroom ………………………………….28
Table 4: Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest of the treatment
group……… 29
Table 5: Participants‟ attitudes towards the
program…………………………………… 30
Table 6: Participants‟ suggestions for future
program…………………………………… 32 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 12

1.1. Rationale for the study and research problem statement

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when using authentic materials are that they are highly motivating, giving a sense of
achievement when understood and encourage further reading. (p.1)
Authentic materials might be used more effectively to develop student‟s interest and
motivation in learning reading comprehension. They introduce life into the classroom so
that they enable the students to comprehend the text easily because they are closed to their
environment or their real world.
From the fact mentioned above, it is of great urgency, scientific and realistic usage to lead
an in-depth investigation on the application of authentic materials in reading in Viet Nam
in order to affirm the effectiveness of a way to improve students‟ reading skill, and to
create a relaxing and enthusiastic learning environment for students in reading lessons.
This has inspired me to conduct this study to find solution to the situation.
1.2. Aims of the study
This research is designed to investigate the effectiveness of the use of authentic materials
on second year students‟ readings skill at the Department of English, Thanh Do College of
Technology. The aims of the study are to:
1. Evaluate the effectveness of the use of authentic on students‟ achievement in
reading comprehension in English.
2. Investigate the students‟ attitudes towards using authentic materials in reading
lessons.
3. Propose some recommendations and suggestions for using authentic materials to
improve reading skill by Vietnamese students.
1.3. Research hypothesis and questions
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the study was designed to test the
follow hypothesis:
H1: Students who take part in the course with the text book and supplementary authentic materials will
make more improvement in reading proficiency measured by a proficiency test than those who do the
course with the text book only.
The acceptance of this hypothesis would result in the injection to the following null
hypothesis:

The findings of the study will provide us a plenty of useful information. First, the study
will give us convincing information about the great value of using authentic materials in 15
improving students‟ reading comprehension. Second, the practical aim of the study is to
suggest some appropriate techniques to make the best use of the authentic materials, so it is
possible to have further improvement in making English reading lessons more motivating.
Last, by doing this action research, the researcher can evaluate the actual use of authentic
materials in her classes.
1.7. Design of the study
This study consists of five chapters:
Chapter I introduces the rationale of the study, the aims, research questions, scope as well
as the significance and design of the study.
Chapter II reviews the literature on the reading teaching in general and using authentic
materials in reading in particular.
Chapter III provides the reader with the detailed description of the subjects and the data
collection instruments, and the procedure of the study. The data collection instruments
include the pretest and the posttest and the questionnaires. The procedure of the study will
be also mentioned.
Chapter IV presents the results and discussion of using authentic materials in reading, and
of the student‟s attitude towards authentic materials.
Chapter V offers a discussion of the major findings from which some pedagogical
implications were derived from. This chapter also points out some limitations of the study
and provides future directions for further research which are not touched upon in the limit
of this thesis.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

been developed in order to assist learners to anhance their reading competence. However,
ideas towards reading approaches are opposing, and it could not be concluded which of
these appoaches works best. The success of this approach or that is context-dependent.
This study, in an attempt to benefit the second year students at Thanh Do College of
Technology, involves both intensive reading and extensive reading approaches, which are
believed to be best suited to our students‟ needs and interests. 17
2.2. Intensive reading and extensive reading
In this study, both intensive reading and extensive reading approaches are integrated in the
course with the help of authentic materials to improve reading. Therefore, it is necessary to
cover the theoretical background of the two.
2.2.1. Intensive reading
Intensive reading is related progress in language learning which Nuttall (1996) defines:
“Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or task
which forces the students to focus on the text”. Thus, intensive reading is usually a
classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantics details of
a message to extract specific information. Intensive reading calls students‟ attention to
grammatical forms, discourse markers and other surface structure, rhetorical relationships
and the like, so intensive reading aims at understanding not only of what texts means, but
of how the meaning is produced. The “how” and the “what” are equally received,
consequently, intensive reading trains primarily strategies to encounter with other text.
Intensive reading is usually confined to the classroom, and materials are usually short in
length. The main intention is to train students in the strategies needed for successful
reading, for instance, predicting, guessing, concluding, etc. Texts are studied closely so
that the features of written English are familiarized gradually by students. So intensive
reading is a process of learning instead of acquisition.
2.2.2. Extensive reading
Extensive reading refers to either „silent reading‟ in the classroom or reading accomplished

Often difficult
Level
Easy (grade readers)
Not much
Amount
A lot
Slow and accuracy
Speed
Fast and fluency
Teacher selects
Selection
Learner selects
All learners study the same
material
What material
All learners read different things
which interest them
In class
Where
Mostly at home
Check by specific questions
and exercises
Comprehension
Checked by reports/summaries
2.3. Authentic materials in EFL
2.3.1. Definitions of authentic materials
There are slightly different definitions of authentic materials in literature.
According to Morrow, authentic materials convey a real language; a real speaker or writer
produce authentic text to convey a real message (Morrow, 1997).
Authentic materials are defined by Nunan (1999) as spoken or written language data that

Songs, documentaries, radio and TV ads, or broadcasts, quiz shows, cartoons, movies, soap
operas, sit-coms, professionally audio-taped short stories and novels, web pages.
• Authentic Visual Materials 20
Photographs, paintings, postcards, pictures, stamps, stick-figure drawings, wordless street
signs, wordless picture books, posters.
• Authentic Printed Materials
Newspaper articles, song lyrics, restaurant menus, tourist information brochures, leaflets,
receipts.
• Realia (Real Objects) Used in EFL-ESL Classrooms
Masks, dolls, puppets, etc.
In teaching reading, the authentic materials which are widely employed are documentaries,
magazines, stories and novels, web pages, newspaper articles, song lyrics, restaurant
menus, tourist information brochures, leaflets, receipts…
2.3.3. Considerations for selecting authentic materials
According to Shepherd (2006), we should consider three levels of students when selecting
the materials:
At lower levels:
Some possibilities include leaflets, timetables, menus, short headline type reports, audio
and video advertising, or short news broadcasts. The task should be simple and relatively
undemanding, and it is important to pre-teach key vocabulary so as to prevent panic. At more intermediate levels:
This list could be expanded to include longer articles, four or five minute TV or radio news
reports, a higher quantity of shorter items, or even whole TV programs, if your copyright
agreements allow it. Again pre-teaching is important, although your students should be
able to deal with unknown vocabulary to some extent.

as well as referring to the amount of new vocabulary and any new grammatical forms
present. It is important to assess the right level for the right students.
If the teacher does not know the students well, the teacher will need to find out about them
as soon as possible. The teacher must find out how much language they know when the
teacher selects suitable texts. 22
The use of authentic materials in teaching learning process will make the students
understand the lesson clearly and easily. Here, the writer focuses on teaching reading
comprehension of the narrative text by using Indonesian folktales. In conducting the
research, the write would like to use authentic printed materials, which are story books
about folktale in her teaching.
2.3.4. Advantages of authentic materials
Using authentic material in the classroom, even when not done in an authentic situation,
and provided it is appropriately exploited, is significant for many reasons, amongst which
are:
- Authentic materials provided exposure to real language and related more closely to
students‟ needs. Students were exposed to real world intercultural discourse (Kilickaya,
2004; Martinez, 2002; Morrison, 1989 & Peacock, 1997).
- Incidental or improper English often was not included in textbooks and the same piece of
material could be used in a different way if the task was different (Dumitrescu, 2000;
Martinez, 2002).
- In the English language, changes could be reflected in the materials so that students and
instructors both understood the changes (Martinez, 2002).
- Authentic materials contained topics of interest to students and encouraged reading for
pleasure, and they were practical and real because they provided valid linguistic data
(Dumitrescu, 2000; Martinez, 2002 & Peacock, 1997).
- Authentic materials included resources and activities that instructors used in class.
Authentic materials contextualized language learning and were a valuable source of

1997).
- The wide range of contents and topics were not accompanied by textual aids, so they
might be too challenging and discourage some students. The materials could be used in the
older age group, but for the younger age group they might be irrelevant, inaccurate, or
inappropriate because of the unfamiliar words, phrases, and idioms (Dumitrescu, 2000).
- No matter how authentic the conditions or realistic the cases that instructors used in a
learning environment, they still could not be the same as a work environment (Herrington,
Oliver & Reeves, 2003)
When authentic materials were compared to textbook-based materials, authentic materials
required longer time frames and the designs were more complex. Many instructors did not
use authentic materials because the investment of time was not realistic or feasible in their